Transcript

Good morning, church. Good morning. Great seeing all of you here this morning. We're continuing our series entitled the how the Bible Explains Everything. And we're in part three of this 12 week journey through the metanarrative of the Bible, dipping down on the major themes of the Bible from Genesis through revelation over these 12 weeks.

And the Bible is an amazing book. It is one book. The Greek word biblios is translated Bible, which literally means the book. And that's what it is. It's one book made up of 66 books written by over 40 human authors over a period of 1500 years.

There's no other book like it. And its author is God. And we believe on every page that if we look closely enough, we can find Jesus revealed on every page, layer by layer, more and more. Revelation 4 fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And that's what we're doing in this series is we're looking for Jesus.

We're looking for the good news about Christ on every page. And we're going to be looking at an important story today about the covenant that God made with Abram, whose name was later changed to Abraham. And we're looking at Abram and this covenant. But before we do, let's, in order to understand the weight of this moment in chapter 15 of Genesis, let's look back over the last couple of weeks. Quickly.

The first week we looked at the creation and the fall and we saw that God made a good world. He made man in his own image. But sin entered the story, fellowship was broken and death entered in. But yet God made a promise that a coming seed would come that would crush the serpent's head. And then we, last week, in week two, we looked at the catastrophe that human wickedness had come to such a place, such a multiplied place, that God judged the earth through a worldwide flood.

Yet even in judgment, he showed mercy. He provided an ark and rescued humanity through the man Noah, and gave him a covenant promise, a rainbow in the sky, saying, I'll never destroy the earth in this way again. And now we come to chapter 15 of Genesis, the covenant. And we see God moving from preserving a remnant to preparing a Redeemer. Indeed, chapter 15 is such a hinge chapter, such an important chapter in the Bible that we can see the whole Bible kind of previewed.

In summary, in this chapter, you're going to see what I'm talking about as we continue today because he moves from the story of Abram to really talking about Abram's seed, which is fulfilled in Jesus. And he talks about a covenant. Now, how Is a covenant different than a contract? God's talk. He gave Noah a covenant and now he gives an even greater covenant to Abram.

How are they different? Well, a contract is a transaction. A contract is a transaction. You sign a contract with your cell phone provider and if you stop paying, they stop providing.

It's a contract that you pay. It's temporary. Lawyers get involved, money's involved, your effort is involved. It's a trade of services. It's temporary and conditional.

That's a contract. How's a covenant different? Well, if a contract is a transaction, a covenant is a transformation, a covenant you enter into and you're saying for better, for worse, for rich or for poor. Instead of saying, I'll be a good husband if you'll be a good wife, it's unconditional. You say, I'll be a good husband even when you're a sick wife, or I'll be a good wife when you're a poor husband.

That's what a covenant is. A covenant says, I'm in it for keeps. It's unconditional, it's permanent. But because we live in a contract world, we tend to view God as a contract God. And we start thinking that if we're not careful, if we don't try to live good enough, if we don't do the right things, that God will reject us, that we think it's based on our earning.

That's what humanity always defaults to, is how can I earn this? But our God's not a contract God. He's a covenantal God. He's a promise making, promise keeping God. And so we, we worry that if we break our side of the contract, he will evict us from his grace.

But what we learn in chapter 15, that he's offering to us a covenant, not a contract through the person, through the seed of Abraham, which is Jesus. You might be wondering today some of these kinds of questions. Maybe you've been straying with doubt. Of recent days, you've been doubting some things. And as we look at the text today, I believe you're going to hear some assurances that will help you with your doubts.

Maybe you're even questioning how in the world can I be right with God? And you've never entered into a covenant with God believing His promises. I prayed today that you'd hear the Holy Spirit move in your life in such a way that you would say yes to Jesus, that you would say yes, I want to be. I want to be in a covenant with God through the person of Jesus, we need assurances. Maybe you're just here today.

And how can I truly trust in his saving promises? That's what we're looking at today. In Genesis 15, we will find assurance because God himself shows us that he is the one who secures his own redemptive promises through the person of Jesus. Moses repeated, recorded in Genesis 15, how God reassured Abram by declaring him righteous through faith, by unilaterally making a covenant in blood guaranteeing the future fulfillment of his redemptive promises. And I believe that we can have the confidence and the faith that Abram displays here by just believing God's word and God's promises that he'll keep his promise to us.

As we look at the text today, I think we'll see three assurances that secure our confidence in God's saving promises. So let's go to the book, let's hear what God says to us today, and then we'll unpack it together. Chapter 15. After these things, the Word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not, Abram, I am your shield.

Your reward shall be very great. But Abram said, o Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless in the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said, behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him. This man shall not be your heir.

Your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.

But he said, O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it? He said to him, bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove and a young pigeon. And he brought them all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abram, know for certain that that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will Be servants there. And they will be afflicted for 400 years, but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve. And afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation. For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.

On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, to your offspring, I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. This is God's word. Amen. We're looking for three assurances that secure our confidence in God's saving promises. This is the first assurance that we see here.

It's the assurance of justification. The assurance of justification. It's amazing to me that we only have to get to the 15th chapter of the first book of the Bible. We don't have to wait to Romans. We don't have to wait till the New Testament.

We can find the doctrine of justification right here in chapter 15. In fact, a hinge verse, perhaps one of the most quoted verses in the New Testament. One of the most important verses to the doctrine of justification is it's Genesis 15:6. You want to memorize a small little verse. It says this, and he believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness.

You see that verse 6, so important by faith, Abraham believed God's promises and God counted it in the righteousness column. Now this is what we have to understand here. Abraham was not perfect, he was not sinless. But he believed God. And he believed what God said that I'm going to provide for you a seed, an offspring.

We have the word offspring in our ESV translation and in the Hebrew, it's literally the word seed singular. In fact, in Hebrew, we capture it was masculine singular. It could only be fulfilled by a male child, a son. I'm going to provide for you a seed. Now, certainly in the immediate future, he was talking about Isaac, his son Isaac.

But we know in the line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and on the way to Judah, all the way through David, all the way into 2000 years ago, Jesus is the fulfillment of that promised seed. That masculine, singular, seed, offspring. I'm gonna provide that for you. And Abraham believes this. And God says, I'm going to count your faith, your trust in my promise, in the category of righteousness.

Because you can't be righteous. You're a fallen man. You're sinful. I'm going to count it as righteousness, and I'm going to pay for it later. And that's what we're going to see in this chapter.

We're going to see the doctrine of justification lived out. Now, before I dig in any deeper, let's just get the setting here a little bit. Chapter 12 of Genesis. He calls him out of Ur of the Chaldeans. And he calls him.

He was a pagan. Abram was a pagan. But God chose him. He elected him. He calls him out, and Abram believes he's the father of the faith.

He believes God. He comes out of Ur, which later is known as the city or the land of Babylon. And the Chaldeans are later called Babylonians. He calls them out of that land into the promised land, chapter 12. And then we don't get far into chapter 12 before there's a famine in the land.

And Abram goes south. He goes down to Egypt. And that's problematic later because God gets him out of Egypt, but Egypt is still in Abram and still in Sarah. And they brought some stuff back, including a woman named Hagar. She was an Egyptian servant.

But, you know, that can happen to us, too. In the scripture, every time we see Abram go down, he passes that bad habit on to Isaac and Jacob. They all go down to Egypt, too. Egypt personifies or symbolizes rather, the world. And so every time they go down to Egypt, God has to get them out of Egypt, but Egypt stays in them.

You get out of Egypt, you still got Egypt in you. And God has to get that out of you, too. And so. But that's what's happened in chapter 12, chapter 13. He and his nephew Lot had to separate because their flocks were too big.

Lot made a poor choice, moved down to Sodom and Gomorrah, right? And then chapter 14. Abram, who now has become so wealthy, he's got like 300 male servants working for him. He has to rescue Lot and all the people from down there that got carried away. That's chapter 14.

Now we're in chapter 15. Abram's become a powerful man, but he's still got one very, very important weakness. The land that God's promised him is still not his. And the child that God has Promised him. Him is still not his.

And he's afraid. He's getting older. He's getting older and he's worried. But here's how God comes to him. After these things, after chapter 12, 13 and 14 that we just talked about, after these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram.

Abram wasn't going to the Lord. Maybe he was just carrying us around. In his heart, he was carrying it. But God knows your heart. And God speaks to him in a vision.

And he says two things to him. He says, I am your shield. I'm your protector. See, it's a book about God. You can learn a lot about humanity, about the world.

But this book is primarily a book about God. Every page you turn, you learn a new name of God. You learn a new attribute of God, a new character trait of God. He says, I am your protector. I'm your shield.

The ESV says, your reward shall be very great. As a humble student of the Hebrew, I prefer the reading. I am your exceedingly great reward as the king. Jimmy translates it. In other words, here's how God comes to Abram.

Abram hasn't even prayed a prayer yet. At this point, he comes to him and says, abram, I want you to know something. I'm your protector. I'm your reward.

I know you're looking over here for a reward. You're looking over here. You're close to retirement. I haven't saved enough. You're a young single person.

You want to get married. I haven't found my future spouse yet. I'm getting ready to go to college, but I don't know what to major in. You're always thinking and that's fine. There are things that you got to answer.

But here's how God comes to you, believer. Here's how he comes. He comes saying, I'm your protector, I am your reward. No man will fulfill that emptiness in your heart, young lady. No woman, young man, there's an emptiness in your heart that can only be filled by the person of Jesus.

It's been quoted that the mathematician and philosopher Pascal once said, there's a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man that can only be filled by the person of Jesus. He says, I'm your great reward. Don't be afraid. He says, now what was Abram afraid of? Well, now we're going to hear verse two.

Abram is going to make his prayer request. He's very humble. In verse 2, O Lord God. In the Hebrew, Adonai, Yahweh, or as the Older people would say it, Adonai, Jehovah. He uses the double here.

If you're reading the English translation, you'll see capital L, lowercase ord, which shows Adonai, the Hebrew, Hebrew word underneath. And then uniquely here, we have capital G, capital O, capital D in the esv, which shows that Yahweh, the covenantal name of God Jehovah, is underneath the English translation. Very humble here, very worshipful. O Adonai, Yahweh, what will you give me for I continue childless in the air? I have no heir.

In fact, my servant, the leader of my household, Eleazar of Damascus, he's going to be my heir. And then God didn't say anything after verse two. You might say, well, that's because Abram kept on talking. But it might be, as a Hebrew scholar has looked into this and said, there's kind of a Hebrew pattern here. Sometimes we make a prayer request, and when God doesn't immediately answer, we just rephrase the prayer.

Like, maybe I didn't say it right. Maybe. I mean, maybe. Maybe God didn't hear me. I need to be more clear.

And so the second time, he's a little bit more abrupt. There's no Lord God. It just says, behold, you've given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.

I don't know how much time took place between verse 2 and 3. I'm not sure about that, Marty Solomon, the guy who looked at this and talked about the Hebraic way of looking at this, he said it could have been a couple minutes, couple of days, couple months, a year might have went by between prayer requests and verse two and prayer request in verse three.

Sometimes God wants you to really want a thing that you're asking him. And then he answers. In verse 4, he tells him the Lord came to him and said, the man that you're talking about, this man shall not be your heir. Your very own son shall be your heir. Literally in the Hebrew here, it says, he will come from your loins, your very own son.

It will come from you, physically. This son will come from you. This will be your son. Don't be thinking it's going to be a servant or something like that. And then he says, go outside and look at the stars, and if you can count them, that's how many your progeny are going to be.

Your seed is going to be amazing. And then what happens in verse six, Abram believes him.

He puts his faith in God's promises. Does he have a son? Does he have a seed? No. Does he have the land?

No. All he has is God promised and he believes God. And God says, Cha Ching, I'm counting that as making you right with me. Which is the doctrine of justification. I'm counting it as righteousness.

That's what I'm counting it as.

When we talk about the seed, Paul picked that up in the book of Galatians. He talks about the identity of this seed that was promised to Abraham in Galatians 3:16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He does not say into seeds as of many, but as of one. And to your seed who is Christ.

Paul reads Genesis 15 and he says, oh, that was Jesus. That was Jesus that God was promising Abraham. Right there, that was Jesus. The seed he promised back there when he said, he will bruise your heel, but he will crush your head. Back in Genesis 3:15, that was that ark.

That door to the ark. That was Jesus. Because he said, I am the door no one enters in except by me, right? I'm the he's the ark. There's therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

He's the ark. And now we find out he's this promised seed, Paul says. And then Paul picks up verse 6 of Genesis 15:6. In Romans 4, he says this, for what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. That word counted could be translated, calculated or imputed. Abram had righteousness imputed to his account that he did not earn. Why?

Because he believed God. He believed his promise. That's the biblical definition of justification. Justification is illegal act of God in which he declares a guilty sinner, not guilty. But even more than that, not only not guilty, but righteous because of faith in Jesus.

If you overdraw your banking account, they'll send you a notification. It's called a notification of NSF non sufficient funds. And let's say you overdue by $100. They're going $100 plus a $35 service charge to get you back. That means you are forgiven, you're back to zero.

But you got nothing to spend. You need a deposit. So that now you've got a positive balance. Justification is not just getting us back to zero with God. So now I got it.

Now that I'm saved, I'm right With God. Now I've got to keep myself saved. I got to keep earning. No, no. The same grace that saves you, keeps you so that his righteousness is imputed into your account because of Jesus.

He believed God, and God counted it to him as righteousness. Now, I have sometimes said, okay, here's how you remember the meaning of the word justification. Just as if I never sinned. Just as if I never sinned. But that actually falls short.

That only gets you to zero. We need something a little more. Do you remember the book written by Mark Twain called the Prince and the Pauper? He found the prince was kind of tired. He wanted to see what it felt like just to be anonymous and just not have the weight of being a prince.

And he found a young man that looked like him, and they swapped identities and clothes. You can read that story. That story comes closer to the idea of justification, because we think of justification as God pardoned us. Well, it includes that, but it's not sufficient to explain its whole doctrine. He does forgive us of our sin, but he also imputes Christ's righteousness to us.

And so, like in the Prince and the Pauper, it's not just that he takes away our sin, but that he replaces our rags with his robes of righteousness.

And so we have a new identity and a new reality. Our sin dance is canceled. But even more than that, his righteousness has been deposited into our account. So that Paul writes in Romans 5:1. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the doctrine of justification. It's a legal term where a holy God has looked at you and he's looked at what Christ did for you. He said, if you will believe in Christ Jesus as your Lord Savior, that He died on the cross for your sins, and he was raised from the grave. If you will place your faith in him, then I will take your sin, and I'll put it on him, and I'll put His righteousness on you. I'll take your death, and he'll die your death, and he'll give you his eternal life.

I'll take your separation from the Father, and I'll put it on him, and he'll cry out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So that you can receive his sonship and have his relationship with the Father. This is the great exchange. This is the doctrine of justification. Paul says we can find it.

The New Testament says we can find it. In Genesis 15:6. It was always God's plan Even before the foundations of the world, that he would send Christ Jesus to die and be raised for our justification. You don't have to strive to earn God's approval. In fact, you can't do it.

But you can rest in Christ's righteousness. We have the assurance of justification by faith in Jesus. Well, let's keep going. We need more assurance. We can find the assurance of substitution in the next few verses.

We're going to be unpacking 7 through 17. And it's a very strange segment, as strange goes. This is strange. It's a strange segment of the Bible. And in verse 7 we see he says, I'm the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans.

He's reminding him of where I brought you. I brought you to give you this land. I haven't given it to you yet, but that's what I did. And so verse eight, Abram says, well now, okay, we were talking about an heir that you haven't given me yet, but Nancy brought up the land thing, by the way. O Lord God, there it is again.

O Adonai Yahweh. How am I to know? Notice the language that I shall possess it. How can I be certain? I believe.

But could you give me some bona fides? Could you sign your name on something? Could you give me a sign? How can I know? Which is to have intimate knowledge of how can I really know?

I believe. I believe like it's like the man who, who was bringing the demoniac son to Jesus. And he says, do you have faith? He said, lord, I believe. Help me with my unbelief.

I want to know.

And so God gives him a strange answer to his I want to know. He goes, you want to know? Okay, go get me a three year old heifer, a three year old goat, three year old ram and two birds.

Did you understand my question, Lord? Apparently Abram understands it. Apparently because without any instruction, Abram goes and cuts the three large animals in half, places them so that the halves are facing one another, and then takes the two birds and cuts their throats so that they're bleeding but does not cut them open, and places them facing each other. I've got an image to show you that many call this the covenant of blood or the path of blood. And it would be a well known covenant that Abram apparently already knew about because God doesn't tell him how to do it.

He just says, go get them. So he has to go to his flock and get them and then he places them so that it goes downhill and a river, a rivulet of blood forms between them. So there's a pathway of blood. Now, what is this about? Some believe it points to the betrothal covenant, which would have been well known to Abram during his day.

In fact, some of that still remains in the Middle east to this day. That idea of a covenant in blood, it certainly was what was called the suzerain vassal covenant. Greater to lesser, like a king, a suzerain would have a vassal lord make a covenant. And so the vassal, the. The lesser, or if it's a bridal, a betrothal covenant, the groom to be that wants to get a wife from the father would go to the father who is greater and say, I want to marry your daughter.

And he'd say, well, good, let's make a covenant. And he would cut the animals. Now, it's his job as the groom to be to walk the path of blood first, walk between. That's his job. And what he's basically saying, if I don't take care of your daughter, if I don't keep my word, what happened to these animals is going to happen to me.

It's a blood covenant if I don't keep my word. And then the greater party, the father, he's supposed to walk through the same path and get bloody feet too. He's supposed to walk through and say, if I don't give you my daughter and support you the way I promised, may this happen to me. And that's the blood covenant, the betrothal covenant, the suzerain vassal covenant, that would have been, I believe, well known in the Middle east and some various representation that is still somewhat present today in the Middle East. And so he knows what to do.

God doesn't even have to tell him how to do it. And he does it. And it would have taken him about all day. He had to go find the animals out of his flock, get the ones three years old, bring them, do the butchery work of cutting them in half. I know it's graphic, but because we buy our food from Food lion and Walmart and those kind of places, and it's in saran wrap and we don't realize, but those of us that grew up spending time on a farm, we know where our food comes from.

This is not that graphic to those of us that recognize that, but it's graphic. And so he does all this butchery work and then apparently the day keeps going on to the point where birds, you know, start like vultures start landing. He's driving them Away. Now, maybe he's doing this thinking, now God needs to show up to do his part of the covenant, and I don't see him anywhere. Or maybe he's thinking, I know I'm supposed to go first because I'm the lesser and he's the greater.

And as he started thinking, now, I don't know if I can keep my covenant. My part, he's afraid to put his pinky toe in there. Maybe. Maybe that's it. Whatever reason, he doesn't walk through.

But the day's going on. In fact, the sun starts to set, and what happens? Verse 12. A deep sleep fell on Abram. This is.

It's not the first time a deep sleep fell on a man in the Bible. You go back there earlier in the book of Genesis, there's this dude named Adam. God knocked him out, put him in a deep sleep, cut him open, pulled a rib out and made a woman. Right? That's where Eve comes from.

You read the Bible. And so there was a betrothal covenant back there. The word covenant, by the way, is barit. In the Hebrew, it means to cut. Some of us use that language today.

We say, I'm going to cut a deal. It's that same covenantal language, goes all the way back. And so we see the betrothal of Adam to Eve. That God was the first officiant at the first wedding. He gives him the wife, Eve.

He presents her to him, and Adam goes, I'm going to call her Woe man. Right? There's a reason for that, too. Men have been feeling that way ever since.

He puts a deep sleep on him. How's he going to keep his side of the covenant while he's taking a nap? Good question. And while he's asleep, behold a dreadful and great dwarf darkness fell upon him. You know why?

Because the glory of God moved into that place where he was taking a nap. And the word glory in the Hebrew is the Hebrew word chabod. And it can also be translated heavy. Because whenever God moves in, he's bigger than everything else. He feels this terrible awe, this heaviness move over him, this great weight.

We know when Eli's sons carried the ark and got it, lost and got killed. And the word came back. And one of the wives was having a baby. She named him Ichabod, which means the glory has departed Kabod. The glory of God moved in.

He felt this great dread and darkness fell upon. Then the Lord starts speaking to Abraham in his sleep. He says, no for certain now, what was. What was It Abram asked earlier, he says, how can I know?

God says. He starts his answer off, know for certain that your offspring, your seed, will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there. Remember how I told you how Abraham got out of Egypt? But he didn't get Egypt out of Abraham. He's talking about Egypt right here, that there's a time coming later when the.

The people of God, the Israelites, are going to be servants to Israel. How long? 400 years, he says. But he says, I'm going to bring judgment on the nation. That's the 10 plagues I'm going to.

He's telling right here. He's telling Abram that's getting ready to happen. But don't worry, don't be afraid. You're going to live to a good old age and you'll be buried. You'll go to your fathers in peace.

And your kids, your progeny, your seed will come back here to this land in the fourth generation. And it seems there's a time clock running on. The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete because God is a merciful God and he gives people time to take, to have repentance. And the Amorites, which I think is representative of all of the peoples of Canaan, he says, their sin has not yet reached the level to where I'm ready to use the people of Israel to judge them. So we see this assurance of substitution, because what we have here in this story is that Abram has taken a nap.

He doesn't walk the path, the blood path. How's this covenant going to be kept? Well, we have verse 17, don't we? When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. This is emblematic of the presence of God.

We have this pot that's filled with fire that just floats between, and then we have this cloud of smoke that floats back like the pillar of cloud by day that hovered over the tabernacle in the wilderness with Moses and the pillar of fire by night. Smoke and fire throughout the scripture. Up on Mount Sinai. Lightning, thunder, smoke, fire. It's emblematic of the presence of God since Abram was in a deep sleep.

And Abram couldn't have paid for it anyway. God walks the path twice. Once for man wants for himself. The price Abram couldn't pay, the price that you couldn't pay, that I couldn't pay, he paid right there. We see it.

We see the emblem. We see the symbology of what Jesus did. He walked the path of blood for me and he substituted the part that I couldn't do. Even if I would have done it, I would have failed. And.

And it would have cost me, and it would have cost you. He walked it twice. He fulfills both sides of the blood covenant and paid as a substitute with his own blood for our sins if we didn't keep it, and we didn't, he paid for it. And so we see this in the Scripture today. It says in Galatians, chapter three, this is Paul speaking to us.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who's hanged on a tree so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. Even the prophet Isaiah talks about this and about the coming Messiah and how he would die in our place as a substitution for our sins. It says, he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him him the iniquity of us all. He was torn, he was cut, he bled.

He walked the covenant both ways because we couldn't. And so Paul writes about this in second Corinthians. He says, for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. This is the doctrine of substitutionary atonement that he died in my place. He walked both paths, my part and his part, because I couldn't.

When doubt whispers, look to the cross with new understanding. When you come to the table and you partake of the bread and the cup, do it in remembrance with deeper thoughtfulness and meditation, knowing that Christ paid the covenant breaking penalty himself on the cross. Your security is anchored in his substitutionary death on our behalf. Your assurance rests in him. This leads us to the third assurance we've talked about.

The assurance of justification, the assurance of substitution, and now the assurance of inheritance. We're at verses 18 through 21, the assurance of inheritance. And he begins to talk about the size of the land and the people in the land that he's going to give to Abraham's seed. And he says in verse 18, on that day the Lord made a covenant. There's the word, covenant means to Cut.

Literally saying to your offspring, to your seed, I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates. And then he names 10 people groups that actually are possessors currently of the land. And he's basically saying to him here, I know you don't have a son yet, and I know you don't have the land yet. And it looks like some other people are camping out on it right now. But it's all yours, all coming your way.

And Abram has to, without seeing it, based on the evidence that God has revealed himself to Abram on that basis of faith, he believes. But let's just look at the situation. God promises offspring when Abram has none. God promises land that's occupied. God promises victory over 10 established nations.

And Abram's taking a nap the whole time. This story, this segment of the story screams that if God doesn't act, nothing happens. And I'm glad God acted.

And our part is to believe that he's acted. And so the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 4:13, for the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world. Heir of the world? When did he say heir of the world? Well, for one thing, here he promises from the river in Egypt, which is probably the Nile, to the river Euphrates, which is in modern day Iraq.

Israel never possessed all that land. Did God not keep his word? Or is it still future tense? Or is it to be interpreted as Paul does here? He was actually making a promise of the whole world.

Because later he says to Abram, when he calls him Abraham, he says, through your seed, all nations will be blessed, which is us. And so that all the people that believe in Jesus are children of the faith and therefore grafted into the tree and children of Abraham, the father of faith. And so he says that we are heir of the world. And this didn't come through law, but through the righteousness of faith. So this, this inheritance that's ours is bigger than just a small place.

It's the whole world. And not just the world, but it's the new heavens and the new earth. Because everything that belongs to Jesus is now ours. Look what it says in Romans 8. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God.

And if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. Co heirs with Christ. Whatever belongs to Jesus belongs to us now. Whatever righteousness, whatever right place with the Father, whatever he owns, we own is all ours.

I don't see it yet. It's not mine yet. Welcome to Abraham's Club. So In Hebrews chapter 11, we read that they saw from afar, right? These all died in faith, having seen it from afar without having believed it or not having received it rather.

But they were seeking a homeland. Hebrews chapter 11. A better country, a heavenly one. And therefore God was pleased to build them a city. Oh, it points to an inheritance.

You know what we have in chapter 15 here we have the whole Bible in one chapter. We really do. We have the whole story in a little story to get us ready for the rest of the story. We even have the future inheritance that is to come. Let's say you make an offer on a house.

I remember we made an offer on this building. And by the way, I prayed for years. How many years did our church pray for a home of our own? We were portable. We met in schools and rented places, you know how long?

19 years. 19 years. We grew to about 2 or 300 people at one point and we still didn't own a building. And we kept praying. And then in 2010, we made an offer on the old Regal Cinema and closed on it.

There's a miracle. They wanted $2.2 million. We offered them $285,000 and they took it. Six acres, 26,000 square foot building. God made me wait 19 years, made us wait 19 years.

Because he only does miracles. He doesn't do little stories. He does God sized stories.

And then we closed on it. We went over to the legal office over here in town, signed papers, took pictures. It was so exciting. But then that was September 2010. We didn't have the first service in here until May 1, 2011.

Because then you got to inhabit the land. You got to get victory over the remodel.

The inheritance is out there, but the wilderness is still in front of us. But it's coming. Oh, it's coming. Be assured that our future is secure. Whatever belongs to Jesus belongs to us.

The ending of the story is already written. We just hadn't got to it yet. We've seen three assurances we are right with God through faith. That's justification. Christ took the penalty for our sin, which is death.

That's substitution. Our future with God is secured in Christ Jesus. That's our inheritance. As I was studying for the sermon this week, I kept humming a song. And finally I realized what I was humming.

It's a so Chris Tomlin song. I'm forgiven because you are forsaken. I'm accepted. You were condemned. I'm alive and well.

Your spirit is within me. Because you died and rose again Amazing love How can it be that you, my King, would die for me? Amazing love I know it's true and it's my joy to honor you in all I do honor you, oh Jesus, I'm looking for you on every page and as I grow in Christ I look for for you on every face that I meet to see if I might find Jesus in their eyes and if not, I might introduce him there.

Are you assured? Stop doubting and believe. Let's pray.

Lord, I pray first for the person that came in on a thin thread today. Someone invited you.

You know you need help. Would you humbly say, today I'm a sinner? Would you admit it? I'm a sinner. I need a savior.

And today, as the Holy Spirit knocks on your heart's door, I pray you'd answer.

I pray you'd confess your sins. That you would invite Jesus to be your Lord and savior. Praying like this. Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. I believe you died on the cross for my sins.

That you were raised from the grave and that you live today. Come and live in me. Forgive me of my sins. Adopt me in your family as a child of God. I want to follow you with my life for the rest of my life and pray like that.

Believe the Bible says that you'll be saved. And others are here today. And you're. You're a believer already, but you've been doubting, you've been feeling dry, you've been looking for something in Egypt. And he's calling you back to himself, saying, I am your protector, I am your reward.

Would you turn your eyes back upon Jesus today? For it's in his name we pray. Amen.